One application of the Internet that has received considerable attention is the ability to transmit or stream media content over the Internet. Once an audio or video work has been digitally encoded it may be both downloaded by users for play, or broadcast (“streamed”) over the Internet. When works are streamed, they may be listened to or viewed by Internet users in a manner much like traditional radio and television stations.
Given the widespread use of digital media, audio works, or video works may need to be identified. The need for identification of works may arise in a variety of situations. For example, an artist may wish to verify royalty payments or generate their own Arbitron®-like ratings by identifying how often their works are being streamed or downloaded. Thus, play lists of media may need to be generated. The prior art has made efforts to create methods for identifying digital works and generating playlists.
As is known by those skilled in the art, a playlist is the documentation of the performance of one or more works at a particular time over a particular media.
FIG. 1 shows a play list generation system 100 of the prior art. The system 100 may include one or more remote detection modules 102 deployed at various locations throughout a broadcast area. Each detection module 102 may include an antenna 104 for receiving broadcast signals and providing the signals to an analysis and lookup module 106. The module 106 is typically configured to identify the content of the received signal by comparing its audio content against a database 108 of known reference signatures.
If a match is made, typically the module 102 will keep a record of all matches made during a predetermined period of time on the database 108. For example, the module 102 may keep a record of song titles detected during a 24-hour period.
The system 100 may further include a playlist server 110 having a processor 112 and database 114. The server 110 is typically configured to receive information such as the titles of identified songs from the one or more detection modules 102 through a network such as the Internet 109 and generate a playlist which may be stored on database 114.
The system 100 of the prior art in operation typically requires the identity of an unknown work to be determined by the individual detection modules. The playlist server 110 is typically only configured to receive and compile identities of works from the modules 102 into a play list.